ServerBeach Unveils Toronto Datacenter Video Tour

We bring you behind the scenes of ServerBeach’s newest datacenter through this video tour. Our 41,000 square foot flagship datacenter is located in Scarborough (Toronto), Ontario and supports over 30,000 servers for ServerBeach and our parent company, PEER 1 Hosting. Our latest facility is able to support 30,000 servers for Dedicated Hosting, Colocation, Managed Hosting, and Cloud Services. Geoff Ois, Senior Account Executive, provides a behind the scenes tour starting from the security fencing outside to inside the datacenter server PODs, to the highly secured chiller water cooling system and UPS power generator rooms. Here are some facts about the datacenter:

Building

• 41,000 sq ft state-of-the-art facility located just outside downtown Toronto, in Scarborough
• Geographic location minimizes network delays caused by multiple hops and latency in North America and in Europe
• Able to house 30,000 servers
• Delivers Dedicated Servers, Colocation, Managed Hosting, and Cloud Services under a single roof
• SAS 70 Type II certified and CICA 5970 compliant for Managed Hosting

People

• On-site Network Operations Center (NOC), senior engineers and level III system administrators
• Can resolve network issues in minutes rather than days because we own and operate the network infrastructure

SuperNetwork™

• Fully owned and operated SuperNetwork™ backbone
• Over 15,000 miles of fiber around the world
• 21 points of presence across North America and Europe
• More than 1,000 peering relationships worldwide
• 1 ms access to Tier 1 upstream transit
• Fully independent self-healing nodes, withstand failures
• IPv6 and MPLS ready

Greener Approach

• Trees were relocated during construction
• Onsite well is used as primary source of water, reducing carbon footprint
• Outside air is used to cool inside the datacenter
• High efficiency white membrane roof reflects UV rays and heat

Redundant Cooling

• Chilled water cooling system features industry’s most efficient chillers along with heat exchangers
• Also equipped with N+1 chillers, N+1 cooling towers and N+1 CRAC units

Power Efficiency

• Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating between 1.3 – 1.4
• 180 watts / sq ft of power density
• Power density is scalable by 25 percent in the future

High Security

• Entire complex is monitored with video surveillance
• Security starts with a perimeter fence and pass-card protected gate
• Equipped with a biometric (thumb scan) lock for added security
• State-of-the-art single-entry mantrap

ServerBeach dedicated servers now in Canada!

We’re proud to announce the launch of our dedicated servers in Canada! Customers now have the option to host their servers in our newest flagship data center in Toronto – http://www.serverbeachhosting.ca/

SXSW 2010 & The GeekyBeach Party

We had another amazing year at SXSW Interactive this year and finished it off with a “Geek” party that was off the hook!

If you attended SXSW this year you know that it was massive – the sessions, the traffic, the entire show this year was epic and we’re happy to be a part of it for the fourth year in a row. Each year, we get to meet more people, engage and create new relationships, and get the opportunity to speak with more and more of our customers. This year, we flew our entire Marketing team and Executive team from our Vancouver Canada office to Austin, TX to be a part of this experience and enjoy all that SXSW Interactive and Austin have to offer. It was great!

On Monday night, March 15th we held one of the biggest parties on 6th street at Ace’s Lounge – The GeekyBeach Party. From Go-Go dancers to a kick ass DJ and a surprise guest entertainer, local Austinite Neiliyo, we totally rocked geeked it! The turnout was amazing, the guests were awesome, and the staff at Ace’s Lounge made sure we all had a wonderful time.

Check out the photos from the SXSW Interactive show and our GeekyBeach party here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peer1/sets/72157623612713186/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peer1/sets/72157623481383877/

PEER 1 Marks Milestones and Looks Ahead to Next Decade

On September 9, 2009 PEER 1 and ServerBeach celebrated the company’s 10 year anniversary worldwide that includes 360 employees in 12 offices around the world. What an amazing day this was. The company was divided into two teams, “Orange” and “Lime” and played a series of 10 games over a 24 hour duration and prizes were given. At the end of the day, PEER 1′s legendary Beer O’Clock began.

Our employee spirit is incredible. Fabio Banducci, President and CEO of PEER 1 says,

“Ten years is a long time in hosting and our anniversary celebration is a testament to the strength of our business. Investing in leading-edge technology to support our IT infrastructure, and investing in our people to deliver remarkable customer support are integral to our success. I congratulate our customers in the ongoing success of their businesses which PEER 1 is proud to support and I applaud the talent and dedication of our personnel around the world.”

To take this celebration one-step further, 4 of our employees took it upon themselves to show their pride and spirit by getting company tattoos which we blogged about in an earlier post, including a video of them getting these tattoos.

To view and read about our 10 year events, celebrations, and press release, please visit the following URLs:

Press Release: http://www.peer1.com/aboutus/news.php?id=131

Employee Company Tattoo Video: http://vimeo.com/6504526

Employee Company Tatoo Photos: http://bit.ly/S0cTc

Company Celebration Day Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peer1/

PEER 1 10 Year Anniversary Company Pride

Today, 360 employees in 12 offices around the world celebrate the 10 year anniversary of PEER 1. Staff members in San Antonio, Texas show their company pride and take the celebration one-step further with…tattoos!

Dedicated Hosting and You

What exactly is Dedicated Hosting? There are so many terms that people use and hear today when it comes to Hosting -

• Dedicated Hosting
• Virtual Dedicated Hosting
• Managed Dedicated Hosting
• Dedicated Server

The list just goes on and on. So let’s start by explaining what Dedicated Hosting is. The short and simple explanation:  A form of Web hosting where the hosting provider dedicates a single machine (server) that is not shared with anybody for a customer’s Web site(s).  Dedicated Hosting gives customers full control over the server, including choice of Operating System, hardware, and full root access.

With Dedicated Hosting, the host or hosting provider is responsible for making sure that the hardware and network is “always on” or always available to the customer. Depending on whether the customer chooses a managed dedicated server or an un-managed (self-managed) dedicated server will determine who is responsible for maintaining the code, scripts, and applications that are on the server itself – the customer or the hosting provider.

Taken from Wikipedia:

A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc. Server administration can usually be provided by the hosting company as an add-on service. In some cases a dedicated server can offer less overhead and a larger return on investment. Dedicated servers are most often housed in data centers, similar to colocation facilities, providing redundant power sources and HVAC systems. In contrast to collocation, the server hardware is owned by the provider and in some cases they will provide support for your operating system or applications.

“Virtual Dedicated Hosting is cheaper than Dedicated Hosting, what’s the difference?” We hear this question often. With Virtual Dedicated Hosting a single server is partitioned into multiple servers. “Huh?” All of us at ServerBeach understand just how confusing all the ‘lingo’ can be so let us explain a little further. When you partition a dedicated server to act as multiple servers, each partition has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own complete operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted. Virtual private servers bridge the gap between shared hosting services and dedicated hosting services, giving independence from other customers of the VPS service in software terms but at less cost than a physical dedicated server.

So if a Virtual Dedicated Server is cheaper, why not just go with it? There are a number of reasons why customers choose to go with a Dedicated server/Dedicated Hosting instead of a Virtual Dedicated Server, many reasons relying on the nature of their business. Due to the number of virtualization clients typically running on a single machine, a VPS generally has limited processor time, RAM, and disk space. Some say, their isolated nature has become common “sandboxes” for possibly insecure public services or update testing. So is virtual dedicated hosting bad? Not at all! If you don’t require a lot of resources such as hard drive space, RAM, or processing time, it just may be the best fit for you.

If you have any questions or want to know more about the benefits of Dedicated Hosting, feel free to give us a call at 1-800-741-9939 and we’ll be happy to explain to you.

ServerBeach Takes the Time to Understand Customer Needs

All of us at ServerBeach strive to go above and beyond when it comes to understanding customer needs. Jason Collier from CertFX was kind enough to send us the following feedback, letting us know his reasons for choosing ServerBeach.

“I’ve been running my web-based business for a while now, and one of the biggest decisions I had to make was which company to use as a server company. I chose ServerBeach for a lot of reasons, but the thing that really cinched the deal was that, unlike a lot of companies out there offering similar services, ServerBeach really took the time to understand what I was looking for and then recommend the service/product/answer to a question which was exactly what I was looking for.

My old provider wasn’t the best in terms of providing customer service. Sometimes I would send them questions related to sales or support and they wouldn’t get back for me for hours, or even days. In the high-paced world of internet commerce, that simply doesn’t cut it, and my business was suffering as a result of their being unable to provide quick, direct, and useful support.

All that changed when we moved our business hosting to ServerBeach. Their response time to questions (either sales or support related) has been unparalleled: whatever time of day or night we get in touch with a question or support need, they’re right on the other end of our communications, ready to give us a hand and solve our problems. ServerBeach is always available no matter what my or my colleagues’ questions or support needs, and unlike some hosting companies that come across as not caring one bit about how your business might be suffering due to a hiccup in service provision, ServerBeach has always communicated their understanding of how their business affects MY business – making them one of the best server hosting companies I’ve ever had the luck to deal with.

Of course, we had some practical issues to consider when we made the move to ServerBeach, as well. Money was a big concern, since we’d been paying inflated pricing for sub-par service with other hosts. ServerBeach’s hosting packages are priced competitively, and they have enough tiers of service provision that I was able to discuss (without feeling pressured) which service tier was going to fit the needs of my business and how much that should cost, then elect to take on that service plan.

I think this is uncommon in the arena of web hosting – there are plenty of companies which give you some basic numbers then expect you to be able to sort out what kind of impact your business is going to have on your web use and web traffic, but this feels like a lot of guess work and isn’t at all intuitive for someone who’s not trying to simply replicate a website and move it from one hosting company to another, but actually wants to grow their business in a positive direction and might therefore need more capacity than they historically have as they move forward.

I was impressed by how ServerBeach was able to listen to my plans for my business, then suggest the areas in which we could anticipate growth and direct us to a plan which fit both our current AND future needs.

Since we moved to ServerBeach, our business has been growing well and we’ve had a lot of opportunity to re-evaluate our move. Every time I’ve sat down and compared the headache and frustration of dealing with our old server company to the ease with which our dealings with ServerBeach have taken place, I’m astounded at how much time and energy I used to spend worrying about getting assistance and answers from our old host. Compared to what I put into my dealings with ServerBeach, the time difference is huge. Now that we’re with ServerBeach, I’m able to spend a lot more time concentrating on my business, my staff, and most importantly my customers – so the service is paying for itself not only in terms of the actual cost but also in the benefits my company is reaping as regards the time we spend serving our customers, instead of getting entangled in lengthy, aggravating communications with our old hosting company, which didn’t seem to mind spending hours of our time without giving a satisfactory answer to our questions.

I’m thrilled my company was able to make the move to ServerBeach. Our bottom line has seen improvement since doing so, and equally importantly, we’re all a lot more relaxed and a lot less stressed since we changed over to working with ServerBeach for all our hosting needs.

Thanks, ServerBeach – you’ve really been a lifesaver!”

Thank YOU Jason. When you succeed, we succeed.

Are You Ready for a Million Hits? PEER 1 Ad Campaign

If you’ve visited our parent company PEER 1′s home page lately, you’ve seen the arrows. If you’ve dropped by our Facebook page, you’ve seen the sumo wrestler. Today, PEER 1 is proud to launch a series of online video commercials that ask: “Is your business ready for a million hits?”

All three ads were produced in a single high-energy day by the tremendously talented people at Rethink Communications.

Why would we make videos where we bury someone in thousands of rubbery arrows? Well, for one thing it’s pretty funny. But at the same time, we want to make a serious point about IT preparedness. PEER 1 and ServerBeach are proud to offer reliable hosting to all types of companies, whether they get a million website hits in a month, in a day or even in an hour. Because we’re a financially sound company, we’re positioned to support our customers through challenging economic times. We have a solid foundation, a great group of diverse customers and a proven business model. We’re confident we offer the safest, most scalable IT hosting environment for businesses running an online presence and we want to let every IT professional and business operator know that through this campaign.

We are also unveiling PEER 1′s new tagline “Fully scalable hosting solutions” that will appear below the logo from now on. The tagline speaks to PEER 1′s position in the marketplace as a full solution IT hosting provider offering you the choice (or combination) of Managed Hosting, Dedicated Hosting (through ServerBeach), Co-location services, and in the near future, Cloud Computing. It also captures our core value proposition of delivering “scalability”, or our ability to grow with our customer’s online hosting demands; conversely, our ability to scale down when less hosting horsepower is required. It also speaks to PEER 1′s extensive geographical footprint – 15 data centers and 21 network PoPs across North America and Europe – and our reputable high performance SuperNetwork™.

Let us know what you think of the ads. If you like them, please link, embed, tweet, blog, and share anywhere and everywhere on the net.

Here’s more about how we can help get your business ready for a million hits.